SRINAGAR: A government official was shot dead in the Budgam area of Jammu and Kashmir in what looked to be another case of a targeted attack by the terrorist organisation Kashmir Tiger. Rahul Bhat, a Kashmiri Pandit, was shot in the Chadoora village Tehsildar’s office. Critically injured, he was sent to a local hospital where he died from his injuries.
According to the police, two terrorists stormed into the government office and shot Mr. Bhat at point-blank range. This incident is the latest in a string of eight-month-long, targeted assaults on migrant labourers and indigenous minorities that have swept Kashmir.
The targeted killings began in October, with the majority of victims being job-seeking migrants from outside Jammu and Kashmir and indigenous Kashmiri pandits. In the span of five days in October, seven people were brutally killed, including a Kashmiri Pandit, a Sikh, and two non-local Hindus.
At least 168 terrorists are active in Jammu and Kashmir, and 75 of them have been killed in confrontations with security forces so far this year, according to authorities.
After a terrorist attack in the Budgam district of Jammu and Kashmir on Thursday afternoon, members of the Kashmiri Pandit minority flocked to the streets across the union territory to protest. Thursday evening, protesters stopped the Srinagar-Jammu National Highway near the Village Vessu. In a video of the demonstration, participants can be heard yelling “We demand justice.”
The community also protested at the Mattan transit camp in the Anantnag district and in Chadoora, Budgam, where the event occurred. In the Valley, Kashmiri Pandit government employees also demonstrated against the administration, claiming that it had failed to keep its commitments.
A demonstration has been scheduled for 10 AM on Friday in front of the residence of the lieutenant governor. “Either offer us safety [a firearm and its license] or move us to Jammu. There is no additional requirement. We cannot perish like dogs and cats, we are human beings #SaveKashmiriPandits&Minorities,” the message being distributed states.
Bitta Ji Bhat, the father of the victim and former police assistant sub-inspector, wants to know if minority employees in Kashmir are secure. “If this can occur in a facility with security personnel, then who is safe?” he said, asking for a probe into the incident.
He questioned the government’s assertions that Kashmiri Pandits will be rehabilitated in the Valley, saying, “Is this how they want to get us there? Those who reside there spend their days alone. The government has failed completely to safeguard Kashmiri Pandits,” he claimed, adding that terrorists were killing them selectively.
Bitta Ji, who served as the personal security personnel of Kashmir National Conference Ali Mohammad Sagar during the latter’s tenure as a cabinet minister in the Omar Abdullah administration, alleged that the administration was inattentive. “I was attending to my brother at the Narayana Super Specialty Hospital in Katra when I was notified about the occurrence at 5:00 PM,” he remembered, adding that he immediately contacted the deputy commissioner and the Budgam superintendent of police, but no one answered.
Ashwani Chrungoo, a senior politician of the BJP and a famous Kashmiri Pandit, stated that Rahul’s murder was a “huge security failure” on the part of the government, which, in his view, had “turned the job package into an employee hostage scheme.” He urged the government to temporarily relocate all Hindu workers from Kashmir to Jammu and to decouple the job package from its rehabilitation or relocation efforts for Pandits.
Mohan Bhagwat, the head of the RSS, informed Kashmiri Pandits at the beginning of last month that the time had come for them to return to their original lands, but he advised them against moving too quickly for fear of provoking additional conflict.Â
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